Tag Archives: restaurants

When it comes to find­ing, order­ing, and eat­ing at eth­nic res­taur­ants there’s only one place to look for advice: eco­nom­ist Tyler Cowen’s Eth­nic Din­ing Guide. I’ve men­tioned Cowen’s guide before (if only in passing), but it’s time I ded­ic­ated a post to this treas­ure trove of din­ing advice and, espe­cially, the tips from Cowen’s Gen­er­al Remarks.

Feiler’s adven­tures, detailed in an art­icle forÂ Gour­met, act as a more exhaust­ive guide than the Chow art­icle on res­taur­ant brib­ing, but the con­clu­sion is the same: $15–30 per per­son, passedÂ to the right per­son, can to get you into most res­taur­ants without a reser­va­tion (or help you skip a long wait­ing list) – but be pre­pared to get turned away and even occa­sion­ally get burned.

What else did Feiler learn from his exper­i­ment? Here are his “ten tips on tip­ping” (read: brib­ing):

Go.You’d be sur­prised what you can get just by show­ing up.

Dress appro­pri­ately.Â Your chances improve con­sid­er­ably if you look like you belong.

Don’t feel ashamed.Â They don’t. You shouldn’t.

Have the money ready.Â Pre­fol­ded, in thirds or fourths, with the amount show­ing.

Identi­fy the per­son who’s in charge, even if you have to ask.

Isol­ate the per­son in charge.Â Ask to speak with that per­son, if neces­sary.

Look the per­son in the eye when you slip him the money.Â Don’t look at the money.

Be spe­cif­ic about what you want.Â “Do you have a bet­ter table?” “Can you speed up my wait?” A good fall­back: “This is a really import­ant night for me.”

Tip the maÃ®tre d’ on the way outÂ if he turned down the money but still gave you a table.

Ask for the maÃ®tre d’s card as youâ€™re leav­ing.Â You are now one of his best cus­tom­ers.

Tip­ping: that most con­ten­tious of issues that–depending on your location–can be illeg­al, required, or the most hein­ous of etiquette crimes. It’s a com­plic­ated busi­ness (as the Wiki­pe­dia entry indic­ates by the size of the Tip­ping by region sec­tion), and an odd and occa­sion­ally uncom­fort­able tra­di­tion.

As a self-pro­claimed ‘socially awk­ward Bri­ton’ Dav­id Mitchell laments the remov­al of the auto­mat­ic, fixed ser­vice charge at D&D London’s group of res­taur­ants primar­ily because, as The Browser sum­mar­ised it, “they min­im­ise embar­rass­ment, and you some­times get a bar­gain”.

Tips are embar­rass­ing and stu­pid â€“ they’re ves­ti­gi­al hag­gling in a soci­ety that has oth­er­wise moved on. If you’re going to a res­taur­ant to be served and eat a meal, why is the price of the deliv­ery open to nego­ti­ation but not that of the food itself, the ambi­ence, music, heat­ing or use of the fur­niture? All of these things can dis­ap­point or delight. It’s illo­gic­al to fix the price of one ele­ment but not the oth­ers.

If I were a res­taur­ant man­ager I would spend 30 minutes with each of my waiters explain­ing the research around how to max­im­ize tips from pat­rons. For example, leav­ing a mint with the bill or draw­ing a smi­ley face on the bill have been shown to increase tip. Research also sug­gests that the tip amount is only mar­gin­ally con­nec­ted with the actu­al qual­ity of wait ser­vice. Bot­tom line is that many waiters miss out on easy psy­cho­lo­gic­al hacks that would increase their tips.

Avoid dishes that are “ingredi­ents-intens­ive.” Raw ingredi­ents in Amer­ica [and likely the UK, too] – veget­ables, but­ter, bread, meats, etc. – are below world stand­ards. Even most under­developed coun­tries have bet­ter raw ingredi­ents than we do, at least if you have a U.S. income to spend there, and often even if one doesn’t. Order­ing the plain steak in Lat­in Amer­ica may be a great idea, but it is usu­ally a mis­take in North­ern Vir­gin­ia. Opt for dishes with sauces and com­plex mixes of ingredi­ents. Go for dishes that are “com­pos­i­tion-intens­ive.”